


Forward

by Sholio



Category: Agent Carter (TV)
Genre: Backstory, Gen, Scars
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-04
Updated: 2016-07-04
Packaged: 2018-07-20 00:37:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,220
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7383976
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sholio/pseuds/Sholio
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Ana goes swimming for the first time after being shot. For the Summer Nights ficathon and for my h/c bingo square "scars."</p>
            </blockquote>





	Forward

There was a secret Ana had not told anyone, even Edwin. It wasn't a big secret. In fact, it was such a tiny and foolish secret that she felt silly keeping it secret from anyone at all.

The secret was that the last piece of her umbilical cord had not fallen out until she was nineteen. The midwife had botched cutting it when she was born, and for her entire girlhood she'd had a tiny hard nodule lodged in her bellybutton. It wasn't dangerous or uncomfortable, or even visible enough for other women to notice when she was bathing or changing. But Ana knew it was there. Most of the time it had no sensation at all, but sometimes when she ran her finger across it, she felt a sharp little pinch as if someone had poked a tool into her guts and wiggled it around. It wasn't a pleasant sensation, so she tried not to do that. But, though it was odd, it was part of her.

Then it fell out in the bath one day, and left her feeling ... not bereft, exactly, but different. She was used to her body being a certain way, and for all the changes of adolescence, _that_ hadn't changed. She never thought it would. And then it did. She didn't really _mind,_ exactly, because it had brought her nothing special, and no one but Ana and her midwife and mother had even known about it.

But it was very strange not having it there.

Now, at the age of twenty-six, she felt very similar as she looked at her body in one of Howard Stark's mirrors, her once-familiar body a study in shadow and lamplight. The window was open, letting in a dry California night breeze and the sound of splashing in the pool outside.

It was not a great change, she thought, looking at her stomach in the mirror. Not so great as the changes on the inside, which she was still adjusting to.

And yet there it was, a pink and puckered scar across the gentle curve of her stomach.

She traced her thumb around the edges. The skin was insensitive and yet strangely tender. For a few nights after they began making love again since the ... incident, Edwin had tried to touch her on the scar. She knew how he meant it. He wanted her to know that he accepted every part of her. That he found her beautiful, no matter what had happened.

She knew that and she appreciated it, and she loved him for it. But she did not want him to touch her there. After she had gently but firmly removed his hands on a few different occasions, he began to avoid the area. And that made her realize total avoidance wasn't what she wanted either.

She just wanted it to be like the rest of her skin, no more or less fascinating than any other part of her.

But it wouldn't ever be. She touched it again with her fingertips, puzzled and a little fascinated by the way it did not quite feel like part of her body with that strange, uncomfortable numbness. Very like the bit of that old umbilical cord, of her and yet not, insensate yet disturbingly tender when she touched it in the wrong way.

Ana turned to the bathing suit laid out on the bed. It was one of those new, scandalous two-piece ones. Howard, of course, had laid in an extensive stock of them for "visitors." Some days earlier, Ana had wandered into that particular closet in search of a different item, and her eye had fallen on a brightly patterned, pink and white and green two-piece suit that might have been made for her. She could tell just by measuring it with her eye that it would be an excellent fit.

She stretched to tie the strings between her shoulder blades, feeling a slight silvery ping from the scar tissue (though more from the scar tissue inside her than the external marks; the doctors had said she might feel it for a long time when she twisted or bent). Then she stepped into the bottom. It had a small skirt, but still showed a good deal of hip and thigh when she looked at it in the mirror.

Through the half-open window of her room, there was another splash and the sound of laughter. Howard was in residence, and Miss Carter was out there, along with Edwin. Ana had been out there herself until a few minutes ago, sitting beside the pool with her book and reading in the quiet dark by the light of a small lamp, while the others swam. 

She used to go swimming often, reveling in the warm ocean of their new home. But she had not been in the water since she'd been shot. Tonight, though, as she had watched the others enjoying themselves in the water, she'd noticed for the first time the scar on Miss Carter's shoulder, and asked about it.

"Oh, I was shot during the war," Miss Carter had said, as if it was no big thing, and slipped back into the rippling water of the pool, beneath the glimmering circles of lamplight.

And Ana knew that Miss Carter's bathing suit hid another scar, from where she'd been impaled. Surely that must have left a scar? She raised a hand to touch her own body, feeling the ridges of scar tissue through the fabric of her dress. She wasn't the only person to have been marked in such a way by recent events.

She'd thought about it for awhile, her book forgotten, and eventually she'd risen, quiet and resolute, noticed by no one but Edwin. He started to stand up but sat back down on the pool's edge when she had smiled at him before going into the bedroom to change.

She could easily have put on a more demure bathing suit. She owned several, after all. But she had found this one in her closet, as if she'd picked it out all those days ago for just this moment.

Now she looked at herself in the mirror and, between the top and bottom of the suit, she cupped her hand over the scar on her belly. Barring other incident, her stomach would always look much as it did now. It would never stretch to hold a baby, or sag afterwards. But that was all right. Many people had come back from the war with worse scars. Didn't young men like to brag about their scars in bars and pubs? If it was good enough for them, it was good enough for her. She'd been in the war too, after all.

Ana was so used to wearing her scars on the inside that there was something refreshing, comforting almost, about ones that were visible for all to see.

She checked herself in the mirror one more time. The night breeze -- one of those unexpectedly cool breezes that California summer nights could bring -- lifted a few strands of hair that had escaped from the tight braid pinned up on her head.

It was a very flattering suit, she decided. It set off her body well. Edwin would like it very much. 

Smiling a little, she went out to join the others.


End file.
